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ets that had sprung up around the country, espe-
cially the Petrograd Soviet. On October 25, 1917
(O.S.), they took power in Petrograd in the name
of the soviets and, once victorious, proceeded to
establish a new revolutionary government. Ini-
tially they had the support of the Left Socialist
Revolutionaries but lost it in March 1918, when
Soviet Russia signed a separate peace with Ger-
many. In 1919 the Bolshevik Party changed its
name to the
COMMUNIST PARTY
to maximize the
break with the other socialist parties that had
wavered in their support of the Bolshevik Revo-
lution. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the
term “Bolshevik” remained in usage, especially
in connection to the Communist Party members
who had joined the party before 1919. Known as
Old Bolsheviks, these party members bore the
brunt of
STALIN
's purges and terror of the 1930s.
Nevertheless, the official name continued to be
Communist Party (Bolshevik) until 1952, when
it became the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union (CPSU).
Izvestia,
the latter the newspaper of the Petrograd
Soviet in 1917. After the October Revolution, he
organized the Soviet publishing industry. Well
versed in military matters, Bonch-Bruevich
served as commander of the Smolny district in
Petrograd during the October Revolution and as
a member of the committee for the revolutionary
defense of Petrograd. He was also the founding
chairman of the Petrograd Commission for the
Struggle against Counterrevolution, later known
as the Cheka. As an administrator, Bonch-Brue-
vich served as executive secretary of Lenin's gov-
ernment and organized the transfer of the Soviet
government from Petrograd to Moscow in March
1918. Bonch-Bruevich's interest in ethnography
and religious sects dated from an 1899 trip to
Canada with a group of religious sectarians
known as
DUKHOBORS
. In 1913 he interviewed
RASPUTIN
and wrote a report absolving him of the
charge of sectarianism, allowing him to continue
in public life. A lifelong admirer of Leo
TOLSTOY
,
he founded and directed the Lesnye Polyany
state farm (1920-29), its name adapted from Tol-
stoy's famous home. From 1925 to 1939, he
edited the publication of Tolstoy's collected
works. In 1933 he was appointed director of the
State Literary Museum, and in 1945 he became
the director of the Museum of History of Religion
and Atheism in Leningrad, a post he occupied
until the year of his death.
His wife, Vera Mikailovna, was also a revolu-
tionary and played a key role in organizing Soviet
health care. His brother, Mikhail Dmitrievich
(1870-1956), a specialist on geodesy and cartog-
raphy, was an officer in the Imperial Army who,
in October 1917, became one of the first czarist
officers to join the Red Army. During the civil
war, he occupied important posts in Bolshevik
headquarters and eventually attained the rank of
general.
Bonch-Bruevich, Vladimir
Dmitrievich
(1873-1955)
ethnographer and revolutionary
A close associate of
LENIN
, Bonch-Bruevich was
also a recognized ethnographer and expert on
Russian religious sectarianism. The son of a land
surveyor, Bonch-Bruevich became interested in
revolutionary activity from an early age and was
banished from Moscow in 1889. Four years later
he returned to Moscow and joined Marxist study
circles, becoming a member of the Social Demo-
cratic Party in 1895. In 1896 he enrolled in the
faculty of natural sciences at the University of
Zurich, from which time he developed a close
working relationship and friendship with Lenin.
In 1903 Bonch-Bruevich joined the Bolshevik
faction. Bonch-Bruevich's talents were many. As
an editor, he was involved in various legal and
illegal Bolshevik publishing efforts from 1905
through the 1917 Revolutions. At one time or
another, he worked on the most important Social
Democratic or Bolshevik newspapers,
Vpered,
Zhizn i znanie, Zvezda, Pravda, Rabochii i soldat,
and
Bondarchuk, Sergei Feodorovich
(1920-1994)
actor and film director
A Ukrainian actor and film director, Sergei Bon-
darchuk is perhaps best remembered for his lavish
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